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Taps at your table in River North

Certain things are just more satisfying when you do them yourself, like painting the house, or impregnating the wife. Definitely the wife one. Add serving your own hooch to the list, at Public House. A follow-up to the nearby Bull & Bear, PH is taking their pour-it-yourself brew up a level by adding in-table liquor taps to the mix (plus an eight-tap, serve-yourself "walltender"), and keeps the booze flowing through the decor, which includes a pilsner glass chandelier, and an art installation made from green beer bottles -- get inebriated and break it, and you'll certainly have reached your Nader. Fortifying you for the drinkfest are starters like mini Kobe corn dogs w/ pineapple beer mustard, salted pretzels w/ beer cheese fondue, and mac & cheese studded with everything from house-smoked bacon, to lobster, to French black truffles, which in spite of being shaved probably aren't regular showerers. Mains include a slew of BBQ options, from pork & beef ribs to Texas smoked brisket (sided by the likes sweet potato tater tots and roasted poblano/cream corn bread), plus upscale comfort vittles like lobster pot pie w/ American sturgeon caviar, and seared ahi w/ a violet mustard ale broth & sweet potato hash, a dish so good people will yammer about it. Aside from the 100-plus brews, they also have an elaborate list of tipples that emulate famous beer styles, from the Hefeweizen-aping Weiss Guy (cardamom, citrus, orange vodka), to the Monk-y Business, with bananas and fruit-infused rum offering a nod to the Tripels made by Belgian monks, a group whose vow of celibacy may keep them from having a wife, but not from doing it for themselves every once in a while.